The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that the “latest generation” missile, Oreşnik, used on Friday in massive strikes against Ukraine, targeted an aeronautical factory in the city of Lviv, located in the west of the country.
“According to information confirmed from several independent sources, as a result of the strike carried out on the night of January 8 to 9 by the Russian armed forces using the ‘Oreşnik’ mobile ground ballistic missile system, the state aircraft repair factory in Lviv was put out of service,” the Russian ministry indicated.
According to Moscow, this factory is used for “repairing and maintaining the aeronautical material of the Ukrainian armed forces, including MiG-29 and F-16 aircraft, supplied by Western countries”.
Until Monday, the Russians had not specified the target of the Oreşnik attack.
This hypersonic ballistic missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but in Friday’s attack it carried a conventional payload.
The use of Oreșnik, for the second time since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in 2022, was condemned by the European Union and the governments of Berlin, Paris and London, who denounced an “escalation” by Moscow.
Kyiv does not comment on Moscow’s statements about the “aviation factory hit by Oreșnik”
Asked about the Russians’ statements about the target hit on Friday with Oreșnik, Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Forces, stressed that the authorities in Kyiv never specifically communicate the targets hit as a result of Russian attacks.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed on Friday that Russia had hit, overnight, the Lviv region with an Oreşnik missile and presented images with fragments presented as coming from this weapon.
The SBU reported that Moscow hit “civilian infrastructures” near the border with Ukraine and the EU, without specifying the target and the extent of the damage.